The Palestinian National Movement As We've Known It Is Dying

Jonathan Spyer..
PJ Media..
28 July '12..

There is a strong case for a claim that the Fatah-led Palestinian national movement, as we have known it from the late 1960s onward, is fading from the scene.

While in practical terms the Palestinian national movement is an increasing irrelevance, the symbolic cause of Palestine nevertheless retains great emotional appeal both for the Muslim world as a whole and for a wide spectrum of Western leftists. The result: a new, loose, global, Islamist-led movement is emerging in its stead to carry the Palestinian banner.

The failed peace process of the 1990s indicated the central dilemma for the Palestinian national movement. It was not strong enough to achieve its maximum goal of destroying what it regarded as the illegitimate state of Israel. At the same time, with the defeat of Zionism at the very center of its worldview, it proved incapable of making the compromises necessary for a peaceful partition of the disputed area.
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Following Yasir Arafat’s death in 2004, the Palestinian unity which he had created and bequeathed to his people did not long survive. The 2007 split between Arafat’s Fatah and the Palestinian Islamists of Hamas now has the look of permanence about it.

Hamas is entrenched in its semi-sovereign Gaza fiefdom. As a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, its natural partner in the neighborhood is the Muslim Brotherhood ascendancy in adjacent Egypt, rather than its Ramallah-based secular rivals.

As for Fatah, it is the local representative of the rotting secular Arab nationalist movements and regimes which are currently being eclipsed.

The EU’s Think Tank: Engage Hamas and Islamist Movements; Iranian Nuclear Weapons Not a Threat

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
24 March '10

“Stephen Spender [the great British poet] said to me recently, `Don’t you feel that any time during the past ten years you have been able to foretell events better than, say, the [government]? I had to agree to this….Where I feel that people like us understand the situation better than so-called experts is not in any power to foretell specific events, but in the power to grasp what kind of world we are living in.”
--George Orwell, War Diary, June 8, 1940

Does the flow of reports from the EU's official research center advocating engagement with Hamas, Hizballah, and Muslim Brotherhoods as well as negated any threat from Iranian nuclear weapons show the direction of European policy? In the face of the greatest challenge to freedom and stability at present, many institutions are on the other side.

The most recent paper, entitled, “Engaging Hamas: Rethinking the Quartet Principles,” is written by Carolin Goerzig, a fellow at the Institute. Other than having visited the Gaza Strip, it isn't clear what her qualifications are.

Here's how the paper is explained on the think tank's site: "Progress can only be made towards peace in the Middle East by engaging--not isolating--Hamas, without whom there can be no viable Palestinian state. Hamas’ acceptance of the Quartet Principles is a precondition for negotiations, but as Carolin Goerzig argues, it is time for a paradigm shift."

But actually she argues that acceptance should not be a precondition to pro-Hamas activities by the EU. And did anyone consider that with Hamas there can be no viable Palestinian state--it's already staged one violent coup against the Palestinian Authority--or Israeli-Palestinian peace.

(Read full article)
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Feeding the Crocodiles

Jonathan Spyer
GLORIA Center
12 March 05

(While written almost five years ago, I think this has stood the test of time. Europe is now being served.)

The internal peace of the democracies of western Europe is no longer assured. It is threatened by the growing presence, and growing confidence, of the organizations, activists and spokesmen of radical Islam. This is a phenomenon rarely remarked upon in Israel. It may yet have serious and damaging effects on European views of the Middle East conflict.

Observe: In July 2004, Ken Livingstone, mayor of London and a Labor Party member, hosted Imam Yusuf Qaradawi on a visit to the city. Qaradawi, an Egyptian with a Muslim Brotherhood background, is a resident of Qatar and a founder member of the Al-Jazeera TV channel. He is also the director of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, based in Dublin. Qaradawi is a keen supporter of suicide bombings in Israel, which he describes as 'martyrdom operations.' He has spoken of the inherent 'iniquity of the Jews as a community.' These views (in addition to suspected terrorist connections and his support, variously, for the execution by stoning of homosexuals and adulterous women) led to Qaradawi's being banned from entering the United States.

They did not prevent, however, the princely welcome afforded the controversial cleric by the elected mayor of London, who addressed a packed public meeting together with Qaradawi, praised the 'unacceptable truths' he has raised, and denounced the 'Islamophobic outcry' against him.

The public action of Mayor Livingstone, is, according to Jewish community activists in the UK, only the tip of the iceberg. They point to the presence of Muslim Brotherhood extremists such as Azzam Tamimi among the leadership of the Stop the War Coalition, which was raised to protest the war in Iraq (and organized a demonstration of over a million people in central London in April 2003).

Hebron-born Tamimi, in an interview in November on BBC's 'Hard Talk,' expressed his willingness to undertake a suicide bombing in Israel. The coalition has now morphed into a left-wing political party, improbably uniting Muslim Brothers and British leftists under one political roof.

In the very different context of France, as official recognition of communal differences increases, once again the representation of Muslim communities is falling into the hands of the extremists. Thus, the French Council of the Muslim Faith, created in December 2002 as a representative body of the Muslim community in France, is headed by a moderate, Dalil Boubakeur. The real power in the organization, however, is the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF), a Muslim Brotherhood-associated group.

The role of Tariq Ramadan, with his condemnations of Jewish 'communalism,' close relationships with key mainstream bodies (including the editorial staff of Le Monde Diplomatique) and quoting of Voltaire is of similar importance. Ramadan, surely a world master in the art of ambiguity, deems the killing of Israeli children in suicide bombings to be 'contextually explicable.' (He has similarly refused to condemn the stoning of female adulterers.)

Why does any of this matter? The shared goal of Qaradawi, Tamimi, Ramadan, the UOIF and other Islamist organizations in Europe is to effect a shift in the terms of the European debate. They seek to establish a foothold in the mainstream political discussion in Europe for elements of militant Islamist ideology. These elements include the delegitimization of Jewish communal activity, the normalizing of support for violence against Israelis and Jews, and of calls for the destruction of Israel. This is a long-term project, which through the slow build-up and nurturing of political power and influence is intended to eventually bring forth the fruit of profound shifts in policy.

(Read full article)
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